Waffle House killer gets new hearing on death sentence

The death row inmate who marched three employees of a Davie Waffle House into a freezer, ordered them to their knees and shot them as they begged for their lives will get another chance to fight for his own, the Florida Supreme Court decided.

Gerhard Hojan, now 41, was found guilty in 2005 of murdering Christina Delarosa, 17, and Willie Absolu, 28, during a robbery at the restaurant. A third employee, Barbara Nunn, survived a shot to the head.

The state’s high court ruled that Hojan is entitled to a new sentencing hearing because Florida’s process for implementing the death penalty at the time was unconstitutional. The jury that convicted Hojan recommended execution by a vote of nine to three. Last year, the court ruled that death penalty recommendations

had to be unanimous.

Hojan’s was one of more than 200 cases statewide where the Supreme Court ruled a defendant on death row could be entitled to a new sentencing hearing. Florida currently has no system in place for imposing a death sentence, so Broward prosecutors can either wait until a new law is passed and upheld or agree to sentence Hojan to life in prison.

Assistant Broward State Attorney Carolyn McCann, who is in charge of the office’s special projects division, said prosecutors will continue to pursue the death penalty against Hojan.

“They haven’t issued their final mandate in this case, and I have reason to believe the Florida Attorney General’s Office will ask for a rehearing,” she said. “This is a case that really, in my mind, cries out for the death penalty. It was an execution.”

The sentencing judge in the case characterized Hojan’s actions a deliberate ruthlessness.

“There can be no doubt that the victims suffered immeasurable fear and terror at the hands of Gerhard Hojan,” Broward Circuit Judge Paul Backman said while imposing the death sentence in August 2005.

Hojan and his roommate, Jimmy Mickel, had a 4 a.m. breakfast at the Waffle House on March 11, 2002, and followed it up by forcing the three employees to hand over their money, according to trial testimony. Mickel had worked at the restaurant before, as a cook, and knew his way around the floor.

“He's going to kill us,” Nunn told Delarosa, her fellow waitress, and Absolu, the cook at the restaurant.

Absolu put his arm around the two women to reassure them it would all be OK. “No,” Nunn insisted. “I know them by name.”

Hojan ordered them into the freezer and told them to get on their knees. Delarosa, an aspiring nurse and mother of an infant child, was terrified, wondering aloud if she would ever see her baby again, Nunn testified.

When the shooting started, Delarosa tried to hide under a storage rack. Hojan found her and shot her twice as she screamed for her baby, Kyle.

Nunn managed to survive, crawling to a nearby gas station for help. She was able to identify the defendants and testify about the murders. Efforts to reach her Wednesday were unsuccessful.

Mickel is serving five life sentences for his role in the crimes, but he was acquitted of murder charges after jurors determined Hojan was solely responsible for the deaths.

STAFF FILE PHOTO Gerhard Hojan will get a new hearing because the jury vote in favor of his death sentence during his trial in 2005 was not unanimous.